


In a Time Lapse

by Ieni



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-24
Updated: 2015-06-24
Packaged: 2018-04-05 22:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4197768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ieni/pseuds/Ieni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TDOTL Spoilers - The Accelerator Scene//Chapter 106</p>
<p>Valkyrie cannot contemplate the loss of Skulduggery Pleasant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In a Time Lapse

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! So basically I have a lot of emotions about this scene, so tried to put my emotions into words??? Anyway, hopefully enjoy!

For a moment Valkyrie’s thoughts were pinpointed only on the way Skulduggery’s hands – or the skeleton equivalent – moved themselves above her head as he angled the hat on her hair. A small part of her noted how he never accidently brushed any part of her hair or skin. His movements far too careful and precise for that.

_Like an executioner swinging the axe._

Despite Valkyrie’s own disapproval of pretentious poetic language, she could not help but notice the parallels between the two scenes. She knew, if Skulduggery walked into that goddamned Accelerator, who she was – who she _truly_ was – would be split in two and one half of her would be lost forever in the whirring machine along with him. And, she also knew, she would never forgive Skulduggery – the executioner - for taking himself from her.

“There,” he said. “Looks good on you.”

The anger rose up inside her chest before he had finished the sentence. But this anger was different to that she had so often felt as she drew red from her enemies of the battlefield. That anger was her blunt instrument which she merely threw off and discarded into whoever was unlucky enough to be near her. It was easy to control.

However this time, the fire just wasn’t inside her head, but she was the fire. As tears fell from her eyes and rolled down her skin, the tracks they left seemed to scald her skin. The black flames tore at her insides and her heart, which she felt would be less painful to rip out than even _contemplate_ the idea of living a life without Skulduggery Pleasant.

She felt, anger, was much simpler when the person it was directed at was firstly, not one of the most important people she had ever met - or ever would meet - and secondly, the purpose of its whole existence was to mask an even more intense, paralysing fear of losing that person. Somewhere, beyond the tears, she saw his blurred figure step around her and turn to face the object that would destroy his soul, his essence; destroy who he was: forever.

Each time one of his feet came in contact with the ground; each time a step brought him closer to his death, a new surge of memories of their time together would slam into Valkyrie like a tsunami wave:

Their conversations in the Bentley. The times he would make her smile when it seemed the darkness would swallow them all up. Him knocking down the door of her uncle’s home: the first time her saved her and caught her when she fell. The first time she saved him: taunting him with her teases about it afterwards. Losing him to the portal and finding him again – the first time she had heard his voice for months – taking it in like dying men and women take in oxygen. Losing him, again, when she herself was lost to Darquesse. The times he had punched her in training fights, his voice constantly pouring his faith into her, despite the fact that, yes, that time she had failed to duck. The first moment that Lord Vile’s fist had collided with Darquesse’s cheek.

Three minutes ago when his black glove had made her stomach – and her whole world – fold.

No, Valkyrie Cain would not lose Skulduggery Pleasant. Not today, not any day.

She tried to open her mouth, to somehow find the words that she could use to mend the ever growing darkness that was forming inside her. For him, once they were in handcuffs and at the mercy of their enemies, words had been his greatest weapon. The kept him safe. They kept _her_ safe.

Someone had once told her, the right combination of words could build empires from dust and the wrong had the power to cripple those same empires with that same dust.

If, in the end, words could not save her best friend, maybe they could be a homage to every single moment they had spent together and tie them together, with a promise, an oath, that they would never, _ever_ , be forgotten.

“I love you,” she blurted out.

Skulduggery didn’t look back.


End file.
